Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
ID
ER 871
Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius (North Africa) reasserts his demand that all his clerics renounce their property and live in a community of goods with him. He says that those who do not accept it cannot serve in Hippo any more and should find places in other Churches. Sermon 356, AD 426.
Sermon 356
 
14. Ecce dico, audistis, audiunt. Qui habere uoluerit aliquid proprium et de proprio uiuere, et contra ista nostra praecepta facere, parum est ut dicam, non mecum manebit, sed clericus non erit. Dixeram enim, et scio me dixisse, ut si nolint suscipere socialem uitam mecum, non illis tollerem clericatum; seorsum manerent, seorsum uiuerent, quomodo possint Deo uiuerent. Et tamen ante oculos posui, quantum mali sit a proposito cadere. Malui enim habere uel claudos, quam plangere mortuos. Qui enim hypocrita est, mortuus est. Quomodo ergo quicumque uoluisset extra manere et de suo uiuere, non ei tollerem clericatum: ita modo quia placuit illis, deo propitio, socialis haec uita, quisquis cum hypocrisi uixerit, quisquis inuentus fuerit habens proprium, non illi permitto ut inde faciat testamentum, sed delebo eum de tabula clericorum. Interpellet contra me mille concilia, nauiget contra me quo uoluerit, sit certe ubi potuerit: adiuuabit me Dominus, ut ubi ego episcopus sum, ille clericus esse non possit. audistis, audierunt. Sed spero in Deo nostro et misericordia eius, quia sicut dispositionem meam istam hilariter acceperunt, sic eam pure fideliterque seruabunt.
 
(ed. Lambot 1950: 141-142)
 
 
 
Sermon 356
 
14. Look, I am telling you, you have heard what I say, they, the clergy, can hear me too. Any of them who wishes to have his own property, and live off his own income, and act against these instructions of ours – it's not enough for me to say that he won't remain with me, he won't even continue to be a clergyman. I had said, you see, and I know I said, that should they be unwilling to undertake community life with me, I wouldn't deprive them of their clerical status, they could stay somewhere else, live somewhere else, live as best as they could for God. And yet I placed before their eyes what a bad thing it is to fall away from one's commitment. I prefered, you see, to have even crippled colleagues than to mourn over dead ones. Because anyone who is a hypocrite is dead.
So just as if any of them wishes to stay outside and live off his own income, I won't deprive him of his clerical status; so now, because the others have chosen, by God's grace, this community life, any of them who lives it hypocritically, who is discovered to have his own property still, I won't permit him to make a will about it, but I will strike him off the roll of the clergy. Let him appeal against me to a thousand councils, let him sail overseas against me wherever he likes, certainly wherever he can; so help me God, wherever I am bishop, that man cannot be a clergyman. You have heard me, they have heard me. But I hope in our God and in his mercy, that just as they have accepted my arrangements in a cheerful spirit, so they may observe them with simplicity and fidelity.
 
(trans. E. Hill)
 

Discussion:

Sermons 355 and 356 were delivered by Augustine in AD 425/426 (Sermon 356 after Epiphany AD 426) when it turned out that some of the clerics of the monastery of Hippo had retained some private property. For the context, see [843].
Augustine asserts here his right to force his clerics to renounce their property, even if they appeal to the councils of bishops or to Rome (this is what the remark about sailing implies).

Place of event:

Region
  • Latin North Africa
City
  • Hippo Regius

About the source:

Author: Augustine of Hippo
Title: Sermons, Sermones, Homilies
Origin: Hippo Regius (Latin North Africa)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
Copies of between 400 and 500 of Augustine`s sermons have survived to our times. Most of these 400-500 sermons were taken down by scribes as he preached without the use of a prepared script. They are a faithful stenographic record of what Augustine actually said, with probably no subsequent editing of them by himself.
They cover a wide range of topics. They are usually based on the Scripture passage read during the liturgy. The homilies on the Psalms and the Gospels have been preserved in separate collections.
Edition:
C. Lambot ed., Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermones selecti duodeviginti, Stromata Patristica et Mediaevalia 1, Utrecht - Brussels 1950.
 
Translation:
 
Saint Augustine, Sermons (341-400) on Various Subjects, trans. E. Hill, New York 1995.

Categories:

Travel and change of residence
    Ecclesiastical transfer
      Monastic or common life - Clerical community
        Impediments or requisits for the office - Monastic rule
          Impediments or requisits for the office - Social/Economic/Legal status
            Economic status and activity - Indication of poverty
              Economic status and activity - Inheritance
                Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior
                  Administration of justice - Ecclesiastical
                    Administration of justice - Demotion
                      Devotion - Vows
                        Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER871, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=871